


Till Death Gives Up On Us

by Sam_Nook



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Bakery, Bread, Character Death, Fire, Fluff, Immortality, M/M, Pilots, RusAme, WWII, histober2020, inktober but its writing, inktober2020, planes, prompt was aircraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:49:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26828404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam_Nook/pseuds/Sam_Nook
Summary: "Well, Ivan Braginski, you still up for that bakery?"
Relationships: America/Russia (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Till Death Gives Up On Us

**Author's Note:**

> Histober/Inktober 2020 Day Four: aircraft
> 
> Note, this is a Hetalia au that when they die, they are reborn and stuff. That's why Ivan is referred to as Andrei Ivanov.

**I.**

Alfred was eleven when he remembered the first memory. It was sudden, surprising, but it was familiar. He eyed the giant model plane hanging above him, and deep down, he recognized it. It called to him, filling his mind with long-forgotten memories until he blacked out. In the hospital, he doesn't remember anything except the color of the room is red, the color of his plane. 

He wanted to be a pilot then, somehow he knew the skies were his. 

**II.**

The second memory came when his little brother Matthew was born. After school, he drove to the hospital. His brother was tiny with bright, expressive violet eyes that blinked sleepily up at him. 

For a moment, he was staring at someone else. The eyes smiled up at him, and Alfred suddenly felt alone. Those eyes, they were so familiar, he didn't know how to describe it.

That night, he decided he loved those eyes. Somehow, he loved them like he loved his plane and the skies. 

**III.**

The third memory came during a fire. A bonfire and a group of teenagers got out of hand. As the flames licked at the dry grass around the firepit, Alfred found himself paralyzed. He couldn't move; he was terrified but mesmerized by the crackling flames. 

When there were close enough that Alfred's skin burned with the heat, he finally ran with a scream. 

Briefly, he thought he saw the shape of a plane in the roaring bonfire, but he didn't dare look back. 

Alfred didn't like fire. He had lost too much from it. 

**IV.**

Alfred remembered everything else when the plane landed shakily on the runway. He stared out of the windshield, but images filled his mind. 

His hands gripped the armrests of the chair.

**V.**

_Andrei Ivanov._

The Russian man that Alfred had flown with during the world. He was an immigrant, a Russian who was so tired of his country that he had followed his heart to America. He hadn't gotten used to the warm winters of California before they were both dragged to Europe, Alfred more willing than Andrei.

Alfred recognized the ageless, exhausted look in Andrei's eyes. It saw it every time he looked in the mirror—the eyes of someone who had seen and lived too much. It seemed that they both saw themselves in each other, and it had drawn them together. 

They never spoke to each other, at least not until they had landed in an airbase in England. They were both unique; they had seen war; most of the kids around them had not.

"You think this is gonna be worse than the last one?"

Andrei stared at the cigarette in his hands; he gave Alfred an unreadable smile. "They're humans; they are the cruelest things on this planet."

Alfred stared out at the plane in front of them, their plane. "Not all of them..."

**VI.**

"Hey, Andrei, how long do you think this will continue for?" Alfred nursed the wound in his side, sucking in his breath as he wrapped his side with the remaining gauze in the plane's pile of first aid kit. 

Andrei didn't answer him, only gazed at him with tired eyes. They both didn't know. 

"When it's over, can I come to California with you?" Alfred finally whispered into the darkening silence. 

They were both people who had lived for too long, alone and desperate, and somehow they had found each other in the depths of war.

"How about that, Andrei, I'll become some actor in Hollywood, and you open that bakery of yours. I think it's the best goddamn plan ever!"

Andrei gave him a soft smile. 

**VII.**

When the plane shot towards the ground, Alfred cried. He knew he wouldn't truly die, neither of them would, but it still scared him. He gripped his seat and closed his eyes. 

He thought of the bakery Andrei would open, and the movies he would have starred him.

It went dark. 

**VIII.**

The darkness turned into bright flames, and they licked at his feet. He screamed and pulled away, the plane was on fire, and Andrei was gone. 

In the distance, he heard people moving towards the burning plane, so Alfred ran.

**IX.**

It was dark, the sky was full of fog, and Alfred nearly tripped over a hidden tombstone. He managed to avoid the rest of the headstones until his dying flashlight hit the tombstone of Andrei Ivanov. 

He wasn't alone. 

Someone was sitting at the gravestone, his silver hair shining in the moonlight. 

Alfred recognized the violet eyes. 

"Andrei?" Alfred froze, his hand gripped the flashlight tightly. Andrei smiled, and Alfred felt whole. There was no war now; there were no airplanes and fires, just them in the dark. "What name do you go by now?"

"Ivan Braginski." 

"Well, Ivan Braginski, you still up for that bakery?" 

Alfred held out his hand, and Ivan took it. 

**X.**

Ivan always smelled of baked bread even years after they passed on the bakery and retired. Ivan still woke up early to make breakfast, and Alfred still spent his days fixing up old cars in his garage. At one point, the smell of bread would overwhelm the scent of gasoline, and then Alfred always took his break. 

Even years later, the scent of bread lingered in the abandoned garage as if waiting for the empty room to come back to life. 

Miles away, two teens met at a grave of the long-dead Andrei Ivanov. 


End file.
